Advice on End Grain cutting board problem

[David Huston]

Making some cutting boards for some Christmas gifts and ran into a slight issue that I would love to hear some thoughts on. Started with some 1.5" cherry and white oak, ripped to 1.25" turned 1/4 turn and glued up. That glue up went fine. Planed down to even thickness and cut into 1.25" wide strips, flipped every other one for nice pattern and glued up again. Problem is that the ends of the board seem to be narrower than the middle. When I go to trim to final size with my cross cut sled the edge has a bow to it and doesn't rest flat on the sled fence. Maybe 1/16 to 1/8 of curve. I just went ahead and trimmed all four sides so I know I have a square board. No one will probably ever notice but me and I cant really tell looking at the final board but I know they weren't flat against the CC fence. I just wonder what happened. Did I tighten the clamps on the ends too much and compressed the wood? All these boards where pretty simple, same species throughout, but I would like to make some with some different bans around the edges and I don't want to go through all the work to have them look bad. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[William A Johnston]

David, I've actually had the same issue at one time. Did you just clamp to the cutting board or did you have a block of wood between the clamps and the board? I use a piece of oak that is 4/4x4/4 between the clamps and the board and it solved my issue you are describing?

[john bateman]

I made one once and had a similar problem, though I stopped before the final glue up in order to determine what was wrong.
It turned out that my planer was leaving a slight crown of about .01" down the center of the 12" wide panel. When I crosscut that panel into 16 pieces, rotated them, and tried to clamp them, the central section was 16 x .01" longer than the edges of the board.

[David Huston]

I just used the clamps. I will try the board between the clamps next time. Thank you for the tip.

John

How did you fix the crown from the planer? I will definitely check this as well.


Thank you both for the tips!

[Lee Schierer]

It could also be that the center of your glue up has residual moisture from your glue causing the wood to swell slightly. PVA glues contain water and can cause wood to swell. If it was moisture, I would suspect in a few weeks that your trimmed edges will be slightly concave.